Florida wants to deploy drone fleet to help kill mosquitoes

The good news is that modern technology may have finally helped find a new way to eliminate mosquitoes. The bad news is that it’s going to require more drones.

No, robotic Predator and Reaper drones like what’s seen overseas
aren’t going to be deployed to section of America to shoot down
skeeters with microscopic missiles. Officials in Florida are
looking towards using unmanned aerial vehicles to deal with their
mosquito problem though, and their solution isn’t as scary as you
might think.

According to Phys.org, the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District
is evaluating the use of a small, battery-powered UAV to help
fight their war against the stinging insects.

By equipping tiny drones that weigh barely two pounds with small,
infrared cameras, the Florida Keys mosquito squad hopes they can
explore areas using the aircraft’s surveillance capabilities that
humans may have a hard time accessing, such as swamps and
shallow-water pools. Once the drones navigate over those areas
and can alert those watching where the mosquitoes are socializing
and breeding, and then a ground team can be ordered to target
that specific region with the appropriate pesticides.

"If we can find the water, we can kill the mosquitoes. The
real challenge is finding the water quickly enough,” District
Director Michael Doyle told Phys.org.

Although it’s not exactly a challenge to find swarms of
mosquitoes in the swampy Florida Keys, Doyle and company hope
that the UAVs can find hubs earlier than what other tactics
allows, thereby eliminating the insects before they can spawn en
masse and spread disease.

“Finding the water quickly means the district could move
quickly to treat the areas with larvicide,” Nancy Owano
reported for the website.

And while agencies across the country are searching for ways to
get the most out of UAVs, Florida is already one of the drone
leaders within the United States. Space Florida President Frank
DiBello said last year that he wants the state government to
invest $1.4 million towards a possible drone program, giving the
Sunshine State a leg-up on other locales when the Federal
Aviation Administration allows the first UAVs to sore later this
year.

"We're positioning Florida with a foothold in a new
industry," DiBello told his board of directors, according to
Florida Today. "This is a thing that's good for the evolution
of the aerospace industry in the state and we need to take that
action and move on it."

Meanwhile, others down south are opposed to letting drones fly
freely in the Florida sky. Earlier this year, a Florida State
Senate panel voted to ban local cops from using drones for
surveillance purposes, a sentiment that has since been echoed in
jurisdictions across the country.

In June, the FAA confirmed that it had issued it’s first-ever
certificates of approval for the use of unmanned aircraft for
commercial drone use. Those UAVs, the Scan Eagle X200 and Aero
Vironment’s PUMA, will be used to monitor wildlife and
environmental conditions off the Alaskan coast, where manned
surveillance is often impossible.